The Time Will Come When We Will Envy Sisyphus
Camus would have been tragically amused that much is certain.
Sisyphus, condemned to roll his boulder up the mountain only to watch it roll back forever, was at least committed. His suffering was his own. The futility had meaning, the drudgery an absurd dignity. But now, in this shimmering techno-utopia we’re constructing with ones, zeros, and silicon demiurges, we’re outsourcing not only our labor but also our burden.
Soon, machines alone will think for us, write, paint, solve our moral dilemmas, compose our love letters, and even mourn our dead. We won’t push the boulder anymore. We’ll watch it roll from a chaise longue, sipping the cocktails that capitalism pours into our hands as distractions.
The tragedy?
We’ll crave its burden.
There’s something deeply human about labor. The absurdity, the defiance, the sweat of life. AI promises liberation, but its antiseptic efficiency threatens to separate us from the friction that gives life structure. When our thoughts are predicted, our decisions optimized, and our creativity surpassed by GPT-10, we may find ourselves staring into the void of comfort, begging for a stone to roll.
Those with a why to live can endure almost any how. But if machines serve us the “how” on a silver platter, where do we look for the “why”?
So yes, envy Sisyphus. At least he had something to do ;-)
This might be of interest:
You can read an excerpt from the book “Critical Thinking is Your Superpower” here:
